Thomas Aquinas College Lectures & Talks

Dr. Adam Seagrave ('05) gives the annual President's Day lecture at Thomas Aquinas College, California, on February 20, 2026, entitled “God Willing: How the Idea of Divine Providence Shaped the Careers of John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln”.

Can artificial intelligence really think, understand, or know anything at all? And if not, what does our relationship with AI reveal about who we are as human beings? In this tenth and final episode of The Mind and the Machine: Aquinas on AI, philosopher Dr. Michael Augros (Thomas Aquinas College) brings the series to a close by exploring the deeper human and philosophical implications of artificial intelligence. Building on the conclusions of the previous nine videos, this episode argues that AI does not truly think, understand, or perform any real cognitive act. From there, it asks five crucial follow-up questions that shape how we should live with and use AI: • How should we talk about what AI does? • Are human beings superior or inferior to AI? • Is AI a tool, assistant, teacher, or something else entirely? • What can comparing AI to ourselves teach us about human cognition? • Will AI ultimately promote or suppress human goods like wisdom, creativity, freedom, friendship, art, and science? Drawing on Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, Dr. Augros explains why human beings are essentially and permanently different from AI systems, even the most advanced large language models. He clarifies why AI is best understood as an instrument and extension of human intelligence, not a new kind of living or thinking being. This episode also examines: • Why AI can outperform humans in speed, precision, and data processing without possessing intelligence • The dangers of anthropomorphizing AI as a “friend” or “teacher” • Why human creativity, wisdom, and genuine understanding cannot be automated • How AI may ultimately clarify what is truly human rather than replace it Whether you are interested in AI ethics, philosophy of mind, Aquinas, Aristotle, technology and humanity, or the future of artificial intelligence, this final lecture offers a rigorous and deeply human framework for understanding AI without hype or fear. This concludes the full lecture series: The Mind and the Machine: Aquinas on AI.

Original score for the YouTube limited series "The Mind and the Machine" a production of Thomas Aquinas College, original score composed by Richard Goforth, produced by Douglas Cummins and executive producers Chris Weinkopf and John Goyette. Watch the series at ThomasAquinas.edu/Mind

Original score for the YouTube limited series "The Mind and the Machine" a production of Thomas Aquinas College, original score composed by Richard Goforth, produced by Douglas Cummins and executive producers Chris Weinkopf and John Goyette. Watch the series at ThomasAquinas.edu/Mind

Why does Thomas Aquinas believe that thinking and understanding require life itself? And what does that imply about the limits of artificial intelligence? In this ninth episode of The Mind and the Machine: Aquinas on AI, philosopher Dr. Michael Augros (Thomas Aquinas College) develops a causal explanation—rooted in Thomistic metaphysics—for why AI systems cannot truly perform cognitive acts such as thinking and understanding. Building on the previous episode’s deductive arguments, this lecture goes deeper by asking why, in principle, cognition must belong only to living beings. Drawing on Aquinas’s philosophy of life, unity, immanent action, and cognition, the video argues that genuine thought cannot arise from machines because machines lack the kind of substantial unity and self-movement proper to living things. This episode explores: Aquinas’s definition of a living thing as a self-moving being What it means for something to be “one being absolutely” rather than an aggregate Why living beings possess a unity machines lack The difference between immanent operations (like thinking) and transitive actions Why cognition presupposes life, not mere computation Why AI systems, even highly complex ones, are not genuine subjects of thought Using examples from biology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind, Dr. Augros shows that cognition is not something that can emerge from collections of parts acting together, but must belong to a single, unified, living subject. This episode is a key installment in the series, connecting intelligence, life, and being, and preparing the ground for the final conclusions about why artificial intelligence can simulate thought without ever truly thinking. Whether you’re interested in AI consciousness, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, neuroscience, ethics, theology, or the future of artificial intelligence, this lecture offers a deep and rigorous account of what it truly means to be a thinking being.

"Aquinas and Consequentialism", a lecture given by Dr. Thomas Cavanaugh of the University of San Francisco, for Thomas Aquinas College on St. Thomas Day 2026.

The Gödel Problem: A Mathematical Argument Against AI Thought, The Mind and the Machine, Episode 7 by Thomas Aquinas College Lectures & Talks